Their Familiar Disguises
by Riverflame
Summary: barely-R. Warning: Susan/Edmund. Crossdressing fic: In England, Edmund can be a Lady, and Susan still a Queen.


_**Their Familiar Disguises**_

_barely-R__  
Susan/Edmund  
gratuitous crossdressing_

* * *

When he comes into her room at night he heads for her dresser. She pretends she's asleep in the dark as he sorts through the slips, picking one out, bundling it up, moving on to take one of her brassieres.

He goes to her closet next and she could slip out of bed now and reach out and touch him if she wanted. But she doesn't. She sees what he's doing. He takes a skirt and one of the blouses near the back, one that she hasn't worn in a while and shouldn't miss.

-

She hardly remembers in the morning until she notices: that skirt isn't there today, and she reaches to the back and finds her old pale lavender blouse gone. It rushes back - the darkness, the curve of his shoulders against the window.

She doesn't confront him about it, just passes him the butter at breakfast and wears her new lilac jumper. The next day she sees the skirt hanging again in her closet, and the blouse behind it exactly where it had been.

-

The second time, they have been sitting in the living room one evening. Lucy is nodding off by the fire, but refuses to be put to bed. Peter is working at maths and supposed to be helping Lucy with hers, but Lucy can't concentrate with the heat and her plain dislike for arithmetic. Susan is sitting in the armchair knitting until she reaches the trailing end of her skein of yarn, and goes to her room to find another.

She opens the door and finds the light is already on. Edmund is sitting there with his back to her, and she can see in the mirror that he is putting on her makeup.

Lashes that were already long are made thicker, darker; he holds lipstick up to his mouth and the bright color of it makes Susan think of the penny-candy Lucy so covets. Suddenly he meets her gaze in the mirror and stops dead still. She can't tell if his cheeks are rouged or if he is blushing, to have her catch him like this.

She contemplates telling him off, that it's a little queer of him and shouldn't he be studying, that he should never let Mother catch him at this, that he's using up all her best lipstick. Or she could not say anything and wait for him to leave or continue, or tell him that he's smudged his mascara there a little by the corner of his left eye, that he really doesn't need that much eye shadow, that the color is entirely wrong for him. That his lips don't need that much lipstick because they're already very pink, but it makes them look fuller now, parted slightly in surprise. That the fan of his eyelashes when he blinks, slowly, is far more comely than anything she's achieved.

That he looks beautiful, almost even (as his eyes widen a little and his mouth starts to move soundlessly open and shut like a fish gasping out of water, and he puts the cap on the lipstick shakily, as she gently takes it from his jumping hands and wipes at the smudge of mascara, leaning in with a wetted finger to correct the edge of his lipstick and hearing his shuddering breaths, kissing the corner of his mouth gently with her fingers in his hair) vulnerable.

She straightens before he even moves to respond, goes to take her ball of yarn from the top of her knitting basket, and walks out without a word.

-

The third time she catches him, it's just the two of them in the house. Lucy has gone with their mother to help with the shopping, and Peter is at cricket practice. She had thought Edmund was studying in his own room - in fact he had said as much and told her not to disturb him (she had rolled her eyes at his bossy tone but held her tongue). After finishing her chores in the kitchen, she goes to her room and, through some unconscious prescience, hesitates before reaching for the knob to open it. She puts her hand on it and turns it slowly, opening the door only a little.

He's standing in front of the mirror, wearing an old frock of hers. He frowns at himself as he swipes at his hair to lie flat, holding his breath as he touches his waist. His shoulders aren't so broad yet, just enough to show the taper of his waist and the little flare of hips. The dress doesn't fit him there, not as well as it did Susan, but it's closer than Susan might have thought it would be on a boy. It's a small shock, to see someone else wearing her clothes, to see _Edmund_ wearing them, but by now she should hardly be surprised. In fact, it strikes her that he hardly looks himself, hardly looks a boy.

He's even more afraid this time to see her, because trying on makeup is one thing, silly child's play, but at Edmund's age sneaking around to wear your sister's clothing is no longer so innocent.

"Su, you won't tell," he says. "I mean to say, it's not what -"

"Not what it looks like?" she says, and he winces.

He sets down the stockings he had in hand and reaches for the back of the dress to unfasten it, but Susan says "Wait. My lady." She goes to him and takes his hand gently in hers to bend over it, kiss it, a glint in her eyes but her lips all serious. "I have not yet had the pleasure of knowing you."

Edmund blinks and blushes but he answers, "Evelyn"

"Lady Evelyn, might you require some help in dressing? You've not finished." She reaches around him to feel the undone buttons he couldn't fasten by himself.

"I'm quite all right." He doesn't sound it.

"But I insist. You cannot reach your back to fasten your dress properly." Susan moves smoothly around to his back, impulsively grazing his pronounced waist with her hand. He shivers but doesn't move away. Her mouth twitches at the corners.

When she finishes she reaches around him for the stockings he had been holding – her stockings, her silk ones even. Her breasts press against his back. She can see him in the mirror, his lips parted; her ear is close enough to hear his breathing.

"You mustn't neglect your stockings." Sliding around his frame, she kneels before Edmund and gently takes his ankle in hand, sliding her other hand up behind his knee (his breath hitches) and lifting, bringing his leg up. He sways a little but steadies himself with a hand on her shoulder. His legs are soft still, Susan thinks as she slides the stocking over his toes, his ankle, slowly slipping up over his calf. Her fingers brush at the soft skin beneath his knee where it slips into the underside of his thigh, and she realizes that she is reaching below her skirt – his skirt. Evelyn's skirt.

She sets his leg down and takes up the other, stretching it out more so his foot rests in her lap, leaning in to make sure it is pulled to the top and letting her cheek, the corner of her mouth, brush his knee (he gasps, hushed). She lets it linger.

When she stands he is breathing shallowly. She shows him his own image in the mirror, stands behind with her arms around his waist, whispers with soft lips against his ear, "Beautiful." Kisses the shell-like curves of it, the hollow under it, smells the scent of his curls, runs her lips along his smooth neck. Now he is leaning into her touch, her body, head tipping back to tickle her neck with his curls. Grasping behind him blindly, his hands find the folds of her skirt, draw her against him. She chuckles voicelessly into his neck and feels him shiver.

Lowering her head, she lets cheek hover next to his, lips a breath away from his jawbone. Tilts her head, lets her open mouth drag lightly along the curve, then moves just enough to remove the contact. His breath is hot on her neck.

Hovering still, she whispers to the corner of his mouth, "My lady?"

She hears his breath catch in his throat, and then the murmur against her, "My Queen."

In a rush she is opening her mouth for his; wetly, she is sliding her tongue against his bottom lip. He is still at first, but when her arms wrap around for her hands to stroke his waist his thin arms go round her and he holds her, holds her tight, hands smooth and spread on the flat of her back. Hungrily she laps into his mouth and he responds with fervent lips, but all soft, so soft Susan isn't sure this can be the same boy she knows.

His hands find her waist, light touches skimming up and down nearly ticklish, and then beneath her breasts, so so lightly as though he is uncertain, as if he can be uncertain of this now. Answering, she slides a leg along and between his, barely but undeniably pressing against him with her thigh.

They jump, his hands, and she leans into his touch as they soften to cup around her breasts, thumbs brushing over her nipples, and for the first time she is the one who gasps and she feels him press firmer against her at the sound of it. His leg nestles between her legs and she leans in, lets a little moan escape.

She walks him backwards till the backs of his legs are pressed against her bed, and she forces him down a bit so that he sits, and then she gets on her knees to kiss his kneecaps, to touch that soft crook, let her fingers slip a little further up, a little further...

Edmund twitches the skirt of the dress up, and she smiles, pushing past his knees and running her hands along the tops, the insides of his thighs at the hint of suggestion. A choked little "ah" sound comes unbidden from his throat, and then his hands are around her wrists and she nearly freezes until he tugs, hard, pulls her up on top of him where he can wrap a leg around her and work his hand down her back, down her bottom, to tug at her skirt. She grinds into him and he groans, pulls more until he's got the edge of her skirt ins his fingers and he's slipping them under the edge of her panties, tracing the curve of her cheek.

Her hands are in his hair, her fingers on his lips, her lips on his ear and her warm breath gusting in, and his fingers follow the crease gradually down and in towards her wet center, and she gasps against his jawbone –

The door downstairs knocks open and boots clunk at the step.

They scatter apart, Susan tugging her skirt down, Edmund straining to reach to unbutton the back. She helps him quickly and silently, and hands him a towel to wipe the makeup from his face.

Soon it is as though nothing has happened, and Edmund is leaning in Susan's doorway skimming through a book of hers while Susan emerges from her closet with the jumper she was looking for. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand without thinking. Their mother doesn't look twice as she walks past, and Lucy is in the kitchen, singing as she sorts the groceries.


End file.
